Sanderson Farms Championship: Past Winners and Why 2026 Has No Tournament

Quick Answer: The Sanderson Farms Championship was a PGA Tour stop played at the Country Club of Jackson in Mississippi from 2013 through 2025. Steven Fisk won the final edition in October 2025, birdieing his last three holes. There’s no 2026 tournament — Wayne-Sanderson Farms stepped down as title sponsor, and nobody replaced them in time.

I flew into Jackson for the 2022 edition expecting a sleepy fall event, the kind you watch for FedExCup Fall status battles and not much else. I left surprised. Mackenzie Hughes needed a birdie on the second playoff hole just to survive a course playing over 7,400 yards, and the back nine at the Country Club of Jackson bit harder than I expected from a “fall series alternate event.” That trip is why I kept checking the 2026 schedule for this tournament all spring — and why I can tell you flatly that if you’re searching for it, you’re not going to find it. Here’s the full winners history, the numbers behind it, and exactly what happened to Mississippi’s 58-year run of PGA Tour golf.

At a Glance

Century Club Charities held this tournament every October at the Country Club of Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi — a private, 27-hole club where architect John Fought redesigned the championship layout in 2008. It ran as a full-status PGA Tour event starting with the 2019–20 season, paying out FedExCup points and a Masters invitation to its winner.

That last row is the one nobody else puts in a facts table, and it’s the answer to most of what’s bringing people to this page.

Is There a Sanderson Farms Championship in 2026?

No. There isn’t one, and there won’t be — at least not on the PGA Tour.

When the Tour released its 2026 FedExCup Fall schedule in January, Mississippi wasn’t on it for the first time since 1968. Steve Jent, executive director of Century Club Charities (the tournament’s host organization), confirmed the news to local station WLBT the same day. He’d run the event since 2013 and called it a 58-year run that had come to an end, at least for now.

The short version: Wayne-Sanderson Farms had already signaled in 2024 that it planned to step away from title sponsorship, then agreed to one more year as a bridge. That bridge year was 2025. When Century Club Charities went looking for a replacement sponsor through the fall of 2025, nothing materialized in time for the Tour to lock in a 2026 date. Jent told Golfweek in December that a 2026 tournament was unlikely, and that his focus had shifted to 2027 — possibly back on the PGA Tour, possibly on the Champions Tour instead, depending on what kind of sponsor and format he can put together.

Century Club still wants to run some kind of golf event in 2026 to keep the charity dollars flowing, even without Tour sanctioning. Nobody has finalized any details on that smaller event as of this writing.

If you came here hoping to find dates, tee times, or a field list for a 2026 edition of this tournament — I’m sorry, but that content doesn’t exist because the tournament itself doesn’t exist this year. What you can get is the full history below, plus a clear-eyed look at why the sponsorship fell apart.

Every Champion, 2013–2025

Sanderson Farms took over as title sponsor in 2013, after a decade of prior names (Deposit Guaranty, Farm Bureau, Viking) going back to the tournament’s 1968 founding as the Magnolia Classic. Below is the complete list of Sanderson Farms Championship winners from that era, including a column nobody else tracks: whether it was that player’s first PGA Tour win.

Look at that last column. Eight of the last thirteen champions won their first PGA Tour title right here — that’s not a coincidence, and I don’t think it’s controversial to say why.

Fall-series fields skip most of the top 30 in the world, since those guys are either resting or already locked into next year’s signature events. That thins the leaderboard just enough for a hungry rookie or Korn Ferry graduate to get hot for four days and break through. It’s one of the things that made this event genuinely fun to follow, even in its quietest years.

Two scoring records worth knowing: the tournament’s lowest aggregate score is 263, set by Dan Halldorson in 1986, and the best score relative to par is -24, a mark Scott Stallings set in 2012 and Steven Fisk matched in 2025.

What Steven Fisk’s 2025 Win Actually Looked Like

Fisk arrived in Jackson in his rookie season, playing in just his 24th career PGA Tour start. He wasn’t the story through three rounds — Garrick Higgo had led since Friday.

Then Sunday happened. Fisk carded nine birdies in a final-round 64, closing his last three holes in birdie-birdie-birdie to finish at 24-under and beat Higgo by two shots. That final-round number matched the tournament’s all-time to-par record. It’s the kind of round you don’t forget if you were tracking the leaderboard live, because Fisk went from two back with six to play to a two-shot winner without a single mistake down the stretch.

The win came with a $1.08 million check from the $6 million purse, 500 FedExCup points, a two-year Tour exemption, and his first career Masters invitation. Garrick Higgo took home $654,000 for second. Round one of that week also produced a genuine rarity: Matt Kuchar and Niklas Norgaard both made holes-in-one on the same hole — the 183-yard, par-3 4th — on the same day.

Steven Fisk is, as of this writing, the last player to ever win this tournament. Whether he stays that way through 2027 or beyond depends entirely on whether Century Club Charities lands a new sponsor.

Purse and Payout, Year by Year

The full 2025 Sanderson Farms Championship purse was $6 million, according to the PGA Tour’s own tournament records, and here’s how it broke down by finish position:

Beyond the money, a win here carried real weight for a player’s career: 500 FedExCup points, a two-year exemption, an invite to the following year’s Masters and PGA Championship, and access to the following season’s signature events. For guys grinding to keep their card, that combination mattered as much as the check. It’s part of why fall events like this one drew players fighting to lock up status rather than chase a trophy — you can watch that same dynamic play out today for players climbing the FedExCup standings toward that cutoff.

That purse itself tells its own story if you track it year to year. The Tour bumped it to $6.6 million for the 2019 move to a September date. It grew again to $7.6 million in 2024 — Kevin Yu’s winning share that year was actually $1.368 million, more than Fisk earned the following year.

Then in 2025, the purse dropped back to $6 million. A shrinking purse the year before a title sponsor walks isn’t proof of anything by itself, but it’s a pattern worth noticing, and it lines up exactly with what happened next.

The Country Club of Jackson: What the Course Plays Like

The Country Club of Jackson opened in 1914, and its tournament layout carries a Donald Ross flavor even after John Fought’s 2008 redesign — parkland-style routing with small, tricky greens that range from just 5,000 to 8,500 square feet. At 7,461 yards and a par of 72, it’s long enough to punish a short hitter, but the defense here has always been the greens and the Bermuda turf they sit on, not sheer length.

I’ll say this plainly: for a course that gets tagged as a “fall series alternate event” layout, it plays tougher than its reputation. The winning scores back that up. You don’t post 24-under by accident, but you also don’t see a field full of world top-50 players carding it either — the birdie-fest numbers here come from a mix of generous conditions and a field that skews younger and hungrier than a signature event, not from a pushover golf course. Compare that to how other historic championship venues like Shinnecock Hills set up for a U.S. Open, and the gap in defense is obvious even to a casual viewer.

Honest caveat: if you’re the kind of golf fan who only tunes in for a stacked leaderboard of the top 10 in the world, this was never going to be your event. It’s always been a launching pad for the next tier of the Tour, not a showcase for its stars — and that’s exactly what made it worth watching for those of us who like rooting for a first-time winner.

Why the Tournament Lost Its Spot on the Tour

Wayne-Sanderson Farms signed on as title sponsor in 2013 and stayed for thirteen years, funding a run that helped Century Club Charities raise close to $29 million for Mississippi charities since 1994 — including $1.73 million in 2025 alone, with $1 million of that going to Children’s of Mississippi. That’s a genuinely strong charitable legacy, and it’s the part of this story the cancellation coverage tends to undersell.

But title sponsorship is an expensive, unusual commitment. A PGA Tour official noted publicly that the average Tour sponsor stays around 13 years — almost exactly how long Wayne-Sanderson Farms lasted. In 2024, the company signaled it planned to step down; it agreed to one more year as a bridge, and 2025 became that bridge year. When Century Club went looking for a replacement through late 2025, nothing came together before the Tour finalized its 2026 Fall schedule, and the tournament’s spot went to new events in North Carolina and Texas instead.

Jent has been candid that this isn’t necessarily permanent. He’s targeting a 2027 return, and he’s kept the door open to either the PGA Tour or the Champions Tour, depending on what sponsor and format he can assemble. Whether the tournament comes back under this name, a new one, or not at all is genuinely unresolved right now — and anyone telling you otherwise with confidence is guessing.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the payout for the Sanderson Farms Championship?

In its final 2025 edition, the total purse was $6 million. The winner, Steven Fisk, earned $1.08 million; runner-up Garrick Higgo earned $654,000. Payouts scaled down from there based on finish position, with the last made-cut spot earning a few thousand dollars.

Where is the Sanderson Farms Championship?

The Country Club of Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi hosted it — a private 27-hole club that held the tournament every October from 2014 through 2025.

Who won the Sanderson Farms Championship today?

Nobody — the tournament isn’t happening in 2026. The most recent champion is Steven Fisk, who won the final edition in October 2025.

Who made $30 million without ever winning golf?

Tommy Fleetwood. He became the first player in PGA Tour history to earn more than $30 million in career prize money without a Tour win, a streak that finally ended when he broke through at the 2025 Tour Championship. He’s not alone in that club, either — plenty of Tour regulars have banked eight figures chasing that first trophy, including players still chasing that first win like Beau Hossler.

Will the tournament return in 2027?

It’s possible but not confirmed. Century Club Charities is actively looking for a new title sponsor and has said 2027 is the earliest realistic return, potentially on either the PGA Tour or the Champions Tour.

Bottom Line

This tournament ran for thirteen years as one of the PGA Tour’s most reliable launching pads for first-time winners, and it leaves the schedule, at least for now, on the back of Steven Fisk’s record-tying final round. Whether it comes back in 2027 depends on a sponsor search that’s still very much open. Until then, the 2025 leaderboard is the last word — and it’s a good one to go out on.